Gangsta clocks in at 3 minutes and 59 seconds. At the 2:25 mark, the song completely and utterly derails. And yet, like a deranged marathon runner, like a thrice-reanimated zombie, like a cartoon car that loses its tires and then its wheels and falls apart only to win the race because its bumper falls across the finish line, Gangsta keeps fighting. Things fall apart, according to Yeats, Achebe and Questlove. But sometimes, things come together because they are falling apart.
I've sung the praises of Tune-Yards in the past, so I'll hop to it here. Gangsta and the Whokill album are the great leaps forward I'd hoped for after their sloppy-but-genius Bird-Brains debut. New flavors and sounds (and musicians) enter the mix but the creative spark remains. The risk of Bird-Brains' edgy spontaneity succumbing to maturity or polish (a.k.a. boringness) seemed high, but mere seconds into Gangsta when Merrill Garbus becomes the police siren she's sampled, you know that tame isn't going to an option.
Weirdness makes music fun for me, but Gangsta is powered by a monster groove and that's what keeps this song a must-listen for me. Those horns! That bass! Those drums! (And when each of those pieces resurface after that 2:25 mark, it's like they are trying to reignite the whole rocketship.)
You'll find Gangsta (and another dandy Tune-Yards jam, Es-So) on my Spotify playlist Marquee Mark's El Perfecto De 2011.
Oh, and I brought up Questlove for a reason, not just to be high-falutin'. Tune-Yards played Gangsta on Jimmy Fallon with the Roots and it was epic. Please do check out both versions.
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